Alfred J. (Job) Clancy

Alfred J. (Job) Clancy, was born in South Carolina, probably
in Sumter District, and moved with his parents to the Mount Ida area of Pike
County, Alabama around the year 1830. He married Sarah Elizabeth Ganey of Butler
County, Alabama in 1851.

A memory passed down to his granddaughter, Allie Rutherford Thomason, was Job’s
recollection of the “Night the Stars Fell”, when his father and mother held his
hand during what we understand now to have been a spectacular Leonid meteor
shower in November of 1833. Job was about 8 years old (according to Allie) when
this event occurred.

Job served in the Civil War with the Army of Tennessee in Company C of the 57th
Alabama Regiment, Infantry Division. He enlisted in February 1863, was
discharged in February 1865, and received a pension as a result of a disability
incurred in battle. Job fought in the Dalton-Atlanta campaign, where his unit
was cut to pieces in the Battle of Peach Tree Creek. The 57th Alabama also
suffered severe losses in the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Based on the
timing of his discharge, it is likely that Job’s wounds were suffered in the
December, 1864 Battle of Nashville, the last aggressive action of the Western
Southern Confederacy, and another battle in which the 57th Alabama had a large
number of casualties. In his pension application Job wrote that his disability
was “being crippled in the foot and leg from a wound in back from bullet in
War”. Oren Clancy told the story that Job’s dog sensed him coming back from the
war, and ran a mile to meet him.

When joining the Confederate Army, Job was described as a 37 year-old farmer, 5
feet 9 inches tall, with blue eyes and dark hair.

Part of a large migration out of Pike County in response to oppressive federal
reconstruction policies, Job and wife, Sarah Elizabeth, came in 1869 to Texas
from Alabama in a wagon, settling first in Grimes County near the community of
Whitehall, then in the Honest Ridge community near Mexia in 1880, and finally at
Box Church in 1887.

His grandson, Joseph Clancy, remembered Job suffering snakebite on his big toe,
a wound that left him with a crooked toe for the rest of his life. A competing
version is that Job’s toe injury was the result of frostbite suffered during the
Civil War. Job is remembered as a small man with a long beard that extended
almost to his waist, and according to his cousin, Ralph, Job was a woodworker
and a first class carpenter. Allie Thomason recalled that Job repaired wagons
and had a box of fine tools which came from Ireland, and that he used the tools
to make coffee boxes for family members. His granddaughter, Eva Rutherford,
remembered that Job entertained everyone by playing the fiddle, and that his
favorite meal was chili and rice.

Job's application for a Confederate Veteran's Pension was signed with an 'X',
indicating that he could neither read nor write, which in turn suggests that Job
did not have formal schooling since he is remembered as an intelligent man.

In his later years, after his wife passed away, Job lived with his son and
daughter-in-law, Wren and Janie, and their 14 children until he passed away in
1917. Even at the age of 91, he worked on the farm daily. Job died of
erysipelas, a strep infection that started around his eye and spread downward,
until it seemed to circle his neck like a red handkerchief.

Kirby Hyden told a story of going into Job’s bedroom as a young boy to visit
with his 90 year-old grandfather and being surprised to see that the sheet
covering Job looked a bit like a tent. Job’s “tent pole” display was in keeping
with the Clancy reputation of being sexually active and fathering large numbers
of children. His sons had a reputation for being philanderers. According to
one member of the family, the boys married the “best women in the world”, but
weren’t always inclined to be faithful until later in their marriages.